Map Makers
by DanyTheConqueror
Summary: James Potter and Remus Lupin are on a mission. They are exploring Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, trying to find out the secrets of the school for their magical map. [Set December of 1972]


Author's Note: This is set in the same universe of my story The Shadows Within. This is a sort of a before-the-story story. I will be doing a few more of these in the future, most of them related to events that I mention in the main story but never get into because they happened in the past.

There are some important scenes with the Marauder's Map coming up so here it is: the very beginning of the map making process.

**Map Makers**

_December 1972_

James felt every muscle in his body tense up as old Apollyon Pringle walked by, his lit wand out in front of him. His head was tilted and he seemed to be straining to hear something that had caught his attention but since stopped, which made James wary. He did his best to hardly breathe under his beloved Invisibility Cloak and he could tell that beside him, Remus was doing the same. They had both frozen in place, off to the side of a second floor hallway when they first caught a glimpse of him, but James worried that it wasn't enough. The old man was rumoured to be retiring soon, but his senses seemed as keen as ever to James.

He wasn't especially concerned with getting a detention, since he had already had several, but he really didn't want to be caught with his Invisibility Cloak. James knew that it was something that Pringle would confiscate as soon as he got his hands on it. Even if the old man had to give it back, being a personal item of great value, James had the feeling that it would be shipped to his parents. He was not willing to let that happen.

As he and Remus stood, hardly breathing, the caretaker made his way down the hall, taking slow and deliberate steps to avoid making noise. It was only when he rounded a corner, the light and the sound of the footfalls disappearing as he went, that James dared breathe normally again.

"Why do people always patrol the areas we're exploring?" James whispered to Remus. It seemed like, no matter where they were or when they went, somebody would walk past.

"I think there's enough people patrolling at night that they cover pretty much the entire castle," Remus said. The logic made James roll his eyes. Holding his wand up again, he said, "I think we can keep going now. He won't hear us."

James nodded. "Light your wand again," he said. When Remus had used lumos and had his wand arm sticking out from under the cloak, James held it out in front of them with both hands. If he didn't, he knew their feet would show under the hem if they walked at a normal pace.

They walked for several yards without speaking. James was straining his ears, wary that they would hear somebody else coming, and he knew Remus was doing the same. They teased Remus that the reason he had the best hearing was because he was a werewolf, but it was remarkably handy when sneaking around. As it was, Remus had only just brought his wand arm back under the cloak when Pringle had shown up.

It was only after they passed a pair of suits of armour opposite a large window that Remus asked, "Is this where we stopped last time?"

"Yeah," James breathed. "Don't you recognize the helm decorations on that one?" He nodded his chin in the direction of the pair of suits of armour, one of which had wings sprouting from it.

"Oh yeah," Remus said. "Do you want to stay under the cloak tonight or do you want me to?"

"It's my turn to poke around," James said with a grin. He and Remus had been combing over the fourth floor a few times already and last time, he had been the lookout under the Cloak while Remus poked around. They had started in view of the Dark Lake and were working their way around the hallways slowly. James knew he could run across the floor in a couple minutes, since he and Sirius had done it before trying to escape Peeves the poltergeist. But, now that they were exploring with a purpose, they were being slow and deliberate.

James slipped out from under the Cloak and pulled out his own wand (eleven inches, mahogany, and recently scrubbed free of fingerprints). "I'm going to check out the suits of armour first," he whispered in the direction of the Invisibility Cloak.

He climbed up on the platform beneath the nearest one, giving himself a few extra inches. He felt around with his left hand, using his right to light up the way. "Dissendium," he whispered, tapping the back of it. It was the spell that they had discovered that worked on the back of a one-eyed witch statue near their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and they had been trying it on other things ever since. James didn't think that a suit of armour would have anything, but just to be sure he had been tapping all the statues as he went. Just in case.

He slid behind the two suits of armour to feel around the second. Again, he felt nothing and the spell didn't work. Slipping his skinny body past the second statue, he spoke just loudly enough for Remus to hear. "Nothing. Let's keep going."

James walked ahead, assuming that Remus would be following him. He walked past a painting of three knights sitting around a table, ignoring the exclamation of, "You should be in bed you know!" as he pulled the bottom of it off the wall to peer underneath. The knights protested as he lay the painting back, trying to make sure it was straight.

"Sorry," James whispered. He started to walk away, but took a couple steps backwards to add, "Go back to sleep."

He ran his fingertips against the wall as he walked, feeling for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. "Do you see anything?" he asked Remus.

Remus's voice replied, "Not yet. I don't think the statue on the outer wall will have anything, but you should try it anyway."

James nodded, dark hair falling into his eyes, before running across the corridor to the sole statue in the area. It was of a tall woman with very pretty features, made of marble. He felt around, his fingers sliding smoothly over the cool surface. "There are literally no ridges here," he said, partially to himself and partially to his friend. "It would be much easier to hide in one of the other ones than this."

"Try the spell anyway," Remus's voice said.

With a tap, James muttered, "Dissendium." After a few seconds, he added, "Still nothing. This better not be how the whole damn night goes."

They walked further, occasionally talking as James pulled back tapestries, lifted up paintings, and looked around suits of armour. "I can't believe we haven't found anything yet," he said exasperatedly.

"Hey, I found that shortcut behind the tapestry with all the weird looking hippogriffs on it last time," Remus said.

James conceded, "Okay, we found something last time. Today the only thing we've found out is that there is nothing between the pair of suits of armour and here. And that Pringle never stops patrolling. I swear, that guy doesn't sleep as much as a normal person."

He could hear Remus's laugh coming from somewhere to his left. "Well, we need to figure that out if we're going to make a proper map."

The map was the reason they had been going out in pairs to explore the castle systematically. When they had been trying to come up with a prank in September to kick of the year, they had been trying to remember a lot of things off the tops of their heads. They had found a handful of short cuts between floors, noticed patterns in the way a couple of the staircases moved, and had made note of some of the best hiding places. The problem was, it was all very hard to remember off the top of your head, especially when you were running to get away from Peeves, Pringle, or other students.

The four of them had been debating about the exact location of one of the shortcuts, talking freely since Jack, Forrest, and Matthew were down in the Common Room. They were disagreeing about whether or not a hiding area behind a tapestry was close enough to the location of their planned prank for them to sneak in before anybody noticed. He and Sirius had been arguing about it when Remus had said, "You know, if we had a map of the school we wouldn't have to argue about this."

James remembered how Sirius's eyes had glinted with excitement. "We should make one," he had breathed, as though it was the best idea he had heard. "We could write down everything."

"That sounds like it would take a long time," Peter said, but Sirius had been unfazed.

"That's why we'll be the first to do it," he had replied. "We could put it all in, from the shortcuts and the classrooms to the secret passage behind the one-eyed witch. We would never have to disagree about any of this again."

"It would be helpful when we're marauding around, figuring out what to do next," James said slowly. His mind was already reeling with how much work would have to go into this. Even measuring out the castle and getting distance approximations could take a long time in a place this big. Yet, somehow, it still seemed like a brilliant idea.

Peter was grinning. "I like that word, marauding," he said absentmindedly. "We should use it in the title of the map."

"What, marauding?" Sirius said, eyebrows furrowed. "And why does it need a title right now?"

"All maps need titles," Remus said thoughtfully. "It's a good idea."

James thought, trying to come up with a title that sounded interesting. From the silence around him, he assumed that his friends were doing the same. After a moment, he said, "What if we use 'marauder' instead of 'marauding'? Then we could call it the Marauder's Map."

Sirius looked happier than James had ever seen him. "And that would make us the Marauders," he said, eyes twinkling. "I like it."

That had been a couple of months ago and they were nowhere near being ready to draw out the map yet. So far they were just reporting back their findings so their information could be sorted by floor. It was easy enough to count classrooms and lavatories, so they had managed to do parts of some floors already just from paying attention when they were walking to class. Finding secret passages and the like weren't really something you would want to do in the day though, so they had taken to going out at night to do that research.

James flipped up a couple more paintings. He turned over his shoulder in the direction he thought Remus was in and asked, "How much research are we going to have to put into the actual classrooms?" he asked, looking down the hall at the door of a rarely-used room.

"Well, if we want to be really thorough we should still check them all out," Remus said. James could tell from his tone of voice that he was deep in thought. "Let's just focus on the corridors for now. If we're going to find things, they will probably be here."

James nodded. "Sounds good." He walked a couple more yards towards a mirror in an elaborate golden frame. He figured that it would easily be five feet tall and, since it was placed a couple of feet off the floor, it ended well above his head. With a sigh he said, "This is going to be heavy."

"Good thing you have strong Chaser arms then," Remus teased.

The comment made James smile. He had been named the newest Chaser on Gryffindor's Quidditch team a couple of months prior, so he had spent many hours throwing a Quaffle lately. His team seemed to be doing really well, at least after their first game of the season, which James was thrilled about. He had even managed to score four goals himself, so he had been something of a star.

He reached for the right edge of the frame, trying to create a gap that wouldn't crush his fingers without luck. James's brow furrowed. "I think it's stuck to the wall."

"Try the other side," Remus said.

James obliged, walking around to the left side of the painting. He slipped his fingers behind the left edge, prepared to feel the same resistance that he had felt on the right, and was surprised when he was able to pull the corner from the wall with relatively little resistance. "Ugh, this is heavy," he muttered as he pulled the frame out a few inches further.

When he had the frame out, he felt his heart start to beat faster when he realized that there was a gap where the stone wall should have been. "Remus, come here. I need some more light."

He heard his friend shuffle over beneath the Cloak, no longer trying to be quiet. When the light of Remus's wand appeared over his left shoulder, James grinned. "There's a secret passage back here," he whispered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Remus pull off the Cloak. "It could just be a shortcut."

James shook his head. "It's a secret passage. I just have a feeling," he said confidently. "Here, help me push this over."

Together, the two boys pushed the mirror towards the right. It stuck a bit the first several inches, but by the time they had moved it a foot it slid easily. Once he was sure the gap was big enough to fit him, James took a big step up to enter the gap, holding his lit wand in front of himself so he could see what was in front of him.

The light from his wand washed over tall stone walls that were higher than the ones outside in the corridor. They went on for ages, further than the light from his wand could reach. "This place is huge," he said, as much to himself as to Remus, as he turned around.

Remus appeared beside him. "This is definitely magic," he mused, looking up at the walls. "This has been expanded, there's no way you could fit ceilings this high here without messing up the fifth floor and making it uneven."

"I wonder how big this is," James said.

"It's at least as big as some of our classrooms," Remus replied. "Not even including the fact that the ceiling in here is high."

James turned to his friend and grinned. "Do you want to see where it goes?"

He could tell that his friend still wasn't entirely convinced that it was a secret passageway and not just a room, but he knew that Remus was just as curious as he was to figure out the truth. "I want to," he said slowly, "but we should probably wait for Sirius and Peter. They are going to want to hear about this and come with us."

He had a point. When they had found the statue of the one-eyed witch the year before, the four of them had slid down it together. James had been surprised at how long the tunnel had gone on that day, and he wasn't the only one. Sirius had started to express his concerns that they were going to be wandering for ages when they had finally reached the end and found themselves in the cellar of Honeydukes Sweet Shop.

They hadn't gone up then, but they hadn't been able to stop talking about it for days. There had been some debate about whether or not they should use it on a regular basis to explore Hogsmeade, which they were not officially allowed to visit until third year. They had been a bit concerned that Mr. and Mrs. Flume would recognize them, or at the very least their names, since their daughters Apollonia and Artemisia were in their year. There was also some debate about what they should do if people realized they had snuck out. After all, they were clearly Hogwarts students and even if they were old enough to go on Hogsmeade trips, they were only supposed to go on designated weekends.

"I guess we should wait for them," James conceded. Even though he knew Remus was right and that he wouldn't want Sirius and Peter to check out a secret passage without him, he couldn't help but look longingly into the darkness. "When should we tell them?"

"Tonight," Remus said in a tone that clearly said that the answer should be obvious. "It's already –" he checked his watch, "after eleven o'clock, though. We should probably explore tomorrow."

Remembering how long the walk had taken the last time, James said, "You're probably right. But as soon as we can get Pete and Sirius here, we see where this leads."

Beside him, Remus grinned. "Just wait until we tell them we found a third secret passage. Sirius is going to be bouncing off the walls." James raised his eyebrows and Remus added, "Even more than usual, I mean."

They laughed. "Let's get back to tell them," James said. As they were sliding the mirror back into place, he whispered to Remus, "I hope we don't run into anybody on the way back." With that, he threw his Invisibility Cloak over both of their heads.


End file.
